Michael Jackson

Originally uploaded by Richard E. Aaron

A beautiful photograph, no photoshop. All Michael. He was a very handsome human being.

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5/365: And the award for best finger acting in a Network Promo goes to

Originally uploaded by Andrew Günsberg

Click for the blurb about this..

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Try and be good at at least one thing. Even if that thing is Frisbee.

There’s been a lot said about The Chaser’s “Make a realistic wish foundation” gag .
I initially wondered what people would have thought of it were it a “Little Britain” bit.

Well, after pondering for a while and watching the said sketch a few times, here’s my thoughts.

It was full-on gallows humour, in bad taste.
Macabre humour.
Killing the Sacred Cow.
Black Comedy at it’s blackest.
And it was funny.

It was funny because dying children are NOT FUNNY AT ALL.
If you’ve ever laughed at a joke that involves an Aboriginal/A dead baby/the holocaust/disabled people/Asians/Women/Jews/Muslims/anyone that’s not you – then don’t be mad about this joke, because it’s the same.

Humour allows us to address things that otherwise can’t be said.
Satire uses humour to challenge paradigms otherwise too sacred to talk about.

It was funny.
Funny in the way that I laughed because it made me so uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable because it addressed the unspoken, that no-one dared to address.
THAT is the Chaser simply DOING THEIR JOB.
Being the guys who are brave enough to make gags about things you or I find uncomfortable to even ponder in polite society is what they do for a living.

Let me put this on the table: The gag was about the specific charities that revolve around helping sick kids have an experience to look forward to, to remember, to get them and their families away from the heavy atmosphere of punishing daily treatments, the smell of sickness in the hospital, and out to have time together as a proper family.

These are charities that I have worked with, been involved in, and participated in by getting face-to-face with sick kids and their families in hospitals. I, however was lucky enough to go home at the end of the day.

I have seen these kids, their families, the amazing challenges and brutal life expectations that they are dealt – and I still laughed.
I laughed because when face to face with the unimaginable challenges I’ve seen families face – the horror of having your only child operated on weekly to remove cancerous cells that want to take over her body, when playing on the swing set with a kid who has a a zipper scar on his skull from all the constant brain surgery, from speaking to families who don’t know how they’re going to choose between paying the mortgage or travelling back and forth to a capital city with their family to keep a support group around their terminally ill child – the only reaction you can have is one of immense grief. I have tears in my eyes just typing this thinking about the kids and families I have met with and will continue to meet with when doing this work. It’s completely heart breaking stuff.
To be honest, the laughter is a welcome respite from it.
And I’m not even a Dad myself yet.

Speaking of Dads, I grew up as the son of two Doctors. Both my parents used this kind of humour to relieve pressure at the end of a day when they may have had to tell two people that they were going to die, to tell another 18yr old guy that he has Herpes, and tell another man that he’ll have to lose a foot, and sometimes to even lose a very sick patient on the operating table.
The jokes around the dinner table did not diminish the seriousness of their amazing work or the grief of their patient’s families, it simply helped them deal with what would otherwise put a normal human on their arse for weeks – because they had to get out of bed and do it all again tomorrow.

So before you go abusing the Chaser, think about the nature of what humour is.
You either makes jokes about everything, or you make jokes about nothing.
It’s your intention with the humour that defines you.

x aa

Start your own dance.

If you’re committed, others will join you.

This goes for everything.

If you believe your message, and make it safe for others to join you, you will move thousands to action.

Amazing!